Modern people have a strong tendency to relieve stress from work and life by habitual drinking and smoking. Particularly, constant overeating and binge eating and the accompanying excessive drinking gradually increase the incidence of liver-related diseases such as fatty liver and the like. The liver is the heart of all nutritional metabolism, and a vital organ which is responsible for maintaining homeostasis in the body and performing a buffer function. The fat accumulated in the liver is due to food intake, the inflow from adipose tissues, or fat synthesis in the liver itself. The fatty liver is caused by the inflow of fat from the adipose tissues to the liver in the case of drinking a large quantity of alcohol in a short period of time, and by fat synthesis in the liver itself in the case of chronic drinking. Fatty liver produces symptoms such as chronic fatigue, malaise, loss of appetite, indigestion, and bad hangovers. Severe alcoholic fatty liver may produce bad hangovers, extreme fatigue after drinking, and the like.
Alcoholic liver disease is different from toxipathic hepatitis, and thus is generally referred to differently from toxipathic hepatitis. Alcohol that is ingested is not stored in the body, but about 90-98% of alcohol is oxidized into acetaldehyde by alcohol dehydrogenase, again oxidized into acetic acid by aldehyde dehydrogenase, and finally oxidized into carbon dioxide and water. In this procedure, fatty acids as concomitant products are accumulated in the liver, but acetaldehyde as an intermediate product directly damages liver cells due to its hepatotoxicity.
Mallory's bodies and expandable degeneration may be confirmed as characteristic findings of alcoholic liver diseases, and the liver state in this case is called fatty liver.
After that, leukocytes gather into hepatic lobules to remove debris of nectrotized liver cells, causing inflammation, resulting in alcoholic hepatitis. This stage may be returned to normal conditions by simply just stopping alcohol consumption. However, when this hepatitis lasts for a long time, fibrosis occurs within the liver tissue. If the fibrosis progression is widespread, the liver tissue is replaced by connective tissue instead of normal hepatocytes, finally leading to liver cirrhosis. Once the fibrosis progression occurs in the liver tissue, the tissue cannot be returned to completely normal conditions despite being recovered, resulting in irreversible liver damage in which the already formed scar tissue remains permanently.
Meanwhile, many flavonoid compounds have been known to be useful in the improvement of physical function through various actions, and many endeavors to develop action mechanisms and uses of useful flavonoid compounds have been made. Narirutin, which is one of flavonoid compounds, is a flavonoid material present in citrus, and has been known to have a blood pressure lowering effect (Son et al., J. Korean Soc. Food Nurt., 1992, 21(2) pp. 136-142). However, the liver dysfunction inhibitory effect of narirutin has not been known.